


reaching out

by stuff_and_nonsense



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 12:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/pseuds/stuff_and_nonsense
Summary: Nott and Caleb kiss for the first time. It's just for a scam, until it isn't.





	reaching out

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of romantic Nott/Caleb didn't occur to me until I started looking through the fic here, but I've been convinced. Don't think it's going to happen in canon, but their relationship, however it's interpreted, is probably my favorite thing in Critical Role. This is quick and unbetaed, but wanted to get it out there. Hoping to write more for this pairing soon.
> 
> I think this is distinct enough from the other stories in the tag, but I've been reading and rereading many of them, and I'm worried some parts have filtered through. If I've accidentally plagiarized, please let me know and I'll fix it.

Nott is a halfling today, for safety’s sake. Not a child, this time, but a young woman, dark hair down her back and a surprisingly low neckline. He raises an eyebrow at her, and then shrugs. She’s been trying all kinds of guises lately, and this one will pass well enough in public.

The streets are crowded as they make their way to the store, and she sticks close by his side. It’s the only place in town that sells books, and he’s not optimistic about finding much interesting. It’s dusty, with precariously overstuffed shelves, and his initial look over the shelves isn’t encouraging. It seems to be almost entirely tawdry secondhand romance novels. Still, he casts a discrete “detect magic” just in case. 

Something in the corner glows like a beacon.

He forces himself to walk over slowly, thumbing through novels as he goes. He can feel the shopkeeper's eyes on him; in his ragged clothes, he's clearly not a welcome customer here. The glowing book is on a lower shelf, almost by the ground. He kneels down to take a look.

His heart sings. It's magic all right, and good magic at that. He breathes in to steady himself, imagining what he'll be able to accomplish once it's his. There are about three copper in his pocket, sure to be nowhere near enough even in a place like this. He'll have to be clever.

He waves Nott over. “What do you think of this one?” he asks, passing her one of the romances. She stands close by his side, and he taps his fingers against the top of the magic book; she’ll know what it means.

She flips though the romance. “Seems alright,” she says. “A little tame for my tastes though.” The shopkeeper is still watching them intently.

“Hmm.” He selects another book, this one with an illustration on its worn cover. The artist has clearly never seen a human male in their life; no one could have that many abdominal muscles and still walk around. “Is this more what you’re looking for?”

“This seems more like it,” Nott says as she opens it. “You know me so well, honey.” She rests her free hand on his far shoulder, arm wrapping around his back.

He can work with this. Their heads are close together, and his face shielded from view. He switches his vision to Frumpkin to keep an eye on the shopkeeper. “Saucy enough for you?” he says.

“Definitely!” Nott replies. “I can’t wait to get home tonight and read it together.”

The shopkeeper’s starting to look uncomfortable. “Just a bit more,” he hisses to Nott under his breath. “You do enjoy your literature,” he says loudly.

Nott’s eyes flicker to the shopkeeper, and then she leans in and plants a kiss right on his mouth.

He’s taken aback, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s worked. Frumpkin watches the shopkeeper turn away and start fiddling awkwardly with some papers, and Caleb returns to his own eyes and slips the magic book into his coat. Nott’s lips are resting delicately against his own. Though she’s leaned in close as if for a passionate embrace, she’s barely touching him, and she pulls away as soon his coat is securely back in place.

“Do you want to buy it then, darling?” he asks once she’s stepped away. “I think you have the coin purse.” 

She digs though her pockets. “Oh no!” The distress on her halfling face is far too extreme for the situation. “I must have left it back at the inn.”

“Well, no matter,” he says. “We’ll go get it and then come back.” He takes her hand. Her rough skin is familiar and comforting under the disguise. They stop by the town’s market, swiping a fish and a couple of turnips, before retreating back to the woods to rest and go through their spoils.

"Sorry about that," Nott said once they’d found a spot to settle for the night. "I hope it wasn't too gross." 

"Hmm?" He starts setting up a fire, focusing hard on keeping the flames small enough.

"At the bookstore," she says, fiddling with something shiny - a ring, maybe, that she's picked up. “When I, you know…”

"Oh! No, not at all,” he replies. “It was clever of you. It got me my book and got us out of there safe, it was a good plan." The fire’s crackling steadily along now, and he moves their stolen food in to cook.

"Ok then." She's blushing, he sees as he looks up at her, her once-again-green skin going darker on the cheeks. "It wasn't too weird?" she asks.

“Hah, well, it’s been a long time for me, you know. And I was surprised. But it was a smart move, like I said. And it wasn’t unpleasant, if that’s what you’re asking.” She still seems distressed, huddled in on herself. “Was it…unpleasant for you? Did you not want to do it?”

She looks up miserably at him. “No, that’s not it at all. I liked it. I mean, it was fine! It worked, we got out of there!”

There’s something he’s missing here. He’s rarely seen her this upset or nervous, not since the first few weeks after they escaped the jail. “Was that the first time you’d kissed someone?” he tries. Maybe that’s part of the problem?

She nods vigorously. “Goblins don’t really…do that so much, you know? And I mostly did it so you could get the book, but also a little bit because I was curious what it was like. And then I started worrying right afterwards. Maybe Caleb thought it was disgusting, maybe I creeped him out, maybe he’s going to leave…”

He reaches out, puts a hand on her shoulder. “Nott, it’s ok,” he says. “Of course I’m not going to leave. Thank you for helping me today.”

“Ok,” she says, and lets him pull her into a hug. When he lets go, she pulls their dinner out of the fire. He watches her as she does, clever hands dividing up the fish. He really is very lucky to have her here.

“And I didn’t hurt you, right?” she adds suddenly. “With my teeth?”

“No, not at all!” he says. “Honestly, I barely felt you touch me.” 

This seems to calm her. He takes his portion of fish, and they eat in silence. He wants to study his new book, but the sky’s growing dim; better to wait until morning. Instead, he watches Nott. She’s very different from what he’d first expected. Capable and mature, despite her size and nervousness; kind, despite everything he’d ever heard about goblins. She tears into her dinner with sharp teeth. It might have startled him to see the first time, if he hadn’t been too lost in his own head back in that jail to notice much of anything. Now it was just familiar, almost charming.

He might even find her beautiful now, he realizes. It’s not something he’s considered before. They’ve found comfort in each other, both desperate and alone and ready to cling to the first outstretched hand. He cares for her deeply, and it seems like she feels the same. But they’ve had precious little breathing room or reason to think about what the nature of their relationship might be. The incident today might have changed that.

He could just leave it be. He would, if that was what she wanted; it wouldn’t weaken how they felt about each other, if they continued as friends. He thinks about the strength and speed with which she moves, the expressiveness of her yellow eyes and twitching ears, the way her wild hair falls over her neck. He's drawn to her, he sees, now that he lets himself consider it. His past self would have been disgusted by him, by the idea of being attracted to someone like Nott. But his past self had been wrong about a lot of things.

“Nott,” he says, as they clean up their scraps. “Do you want to try it again?”

“What?”

He kneels down and looks her in the eyes. “What you did at the bookstore. You said that was your first time. If you want to try again, under calmer circumstances… I wouldn’t mind. I’d be happy to.” He put his hands up. “If not, of course, we can go on as before.”

He was making a hash of this. Nott’s face was nothing but shock. “You’d…kiss me? For no reason, not a scam or anything?”

“If you’d like.”

“I mean…” She rubs her fingers together nervously. “Of course I would, if you really mean it.”

“Alright then.” He smiles at her, unaccountably nervous, and settles into a comfortable seated position. “Come here?”

Nott whispers something, and her hands move in what he recognizes as the first motions of Disguise Self. He cocks his head in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“I was going to be the halfing from earlier today. I thought that would be better, so you don’t have to stick your face on all this mess.” She waves a hand over her features.

His heart breaks a little. “Nott, I hope this does not make things strange between us, but I’m not- I’m not offering out of obligation, or pity, or whatever it is you’re thinking. I like you very much, and I’ve been considering what sort of feeling that is, and I’d like to kiss you as you are, if you’ll have me.”

Nott squints at him. “That’s really weird, Caleb. Even goblins don’t want to kiss goblins.”

“Well, I don’t know about goblins in general, but I very much want to kiss you.” Maybe that did make him some kind of pervert, but it wasn’t like he could get much lower in the eyes of society. And he cared for her, he really did. If there was anything good in him, it was that. He reaches out a hand towards her.

Slowly, she steps toward him. She places one small clawed hand in his. Caleb shifts to his knees, adjusting to be about her height. He lets her lean in, feels her thin lips press lightly against his.

The moment he shifts position, she jumps back. “Was that ok? Did I hurt you?” She buries her face in her hands, peeking out above the tops of her fingers.

“That was fine,” he says. “That was nice.” He smiles at her. He doesn’t smile so often any more, but with her it comes easy. “Come back over? You won’t hurt me.”

She moves in again, a little more confidently. This time she doesn't shift away when he reaches up to rest a hand against her dark green hair. They lean in a little more, lips pressing more firmly against each other. One of her hands goes to his hip.

When they pull away, he sighs, contented. He doesn’t know what this is, what it will become, but it feels good and right. Nott is clearly struggling to keep herself from grinning. “I see why people like that,” she says, and loses the internal battle, showing her lovely sharp teeth. Caleb pulls her close, and they fall asleep under the trees, calm and together.


End file.
